Standard Budget Deck: Divine Gauge (Genesis)

   

There's more than one Genesis player here

Did you ever want to build a deck with reasonably affordable waifus tied to Greek and Norse mythology? Have you ever wanted to call down a board but were in fear over your opponent's control options against it? Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, wouldn't it be cool if my board couldn't be touched whilst still allowing me to get the big swings and restands other popular decks have?" Well do I have the deck for you!

Premium Budget Deck: Geoma-Glass Cannon

Justice once again

 

So this can also be dubbed as a Crazy Diamond build but I prefer Geoma-Glass Cannon for the irony in addition to having a more straightforward naming process. This build is focused on using the Enigman ride chain, allowing you to skimp out on other units of that grade in order to run as many Grade 3s as possible. The original build used this in tandem with Daikaiser to abuse the break ride skill, and other variants since then focus on synergizing with units that benefit from running a lot of Grade 3s. In the modern day we now have Geomaglass who greatly lends itself to this strategy alongside new units from the V series with higher base stats that can be abused by the deck. 

Instead of the usual spotlight where I provide various options to run with a sample build alongside it, I'll be instead providing insight on my own take for a budget build, which you're welcome to change at your own discretion. 

Premium Budget Deck: (True) Ancient Dragons

This one's for you friend

Tachikaze, and more specifically Ancient Dragon was the first deck I had fully built in real life after reading Tachi's post and discussing ideas with him online. While I did move away from the clan after ADs fell out of relevancy, I would still play games casually with the deck and with V Series coming around I had always hoped a reboot would give the archetype another moment in the spotlight. And here we are, six years from that point, with new cards promoting the aggressive playstyle of the past. 

Standard Budget Deck: Dimension Police (Metalborg Mashup)

I dislike having to remember Legion

With Silverdust Blaze recently released it's a good time to talk about the new giant robots from this round of Dimension Police support. While the support in this set has been mixed, a good amount of options have been provided to the regular and budget playstyles. Bradblack is an outstanding addition to several variants within the clan due to it's ease of use. It being a RRR also means it can find its way into many budget builds and can give them a boost of power needed to make them more viable. With that in mind, one of these options is Metalborgs, which will be the focus of this post. 

Premium Budget Deck: Aqua Force (Ripple Cycloned)

Considering Cyclone was the cover card for Premium Collection 2020, it only seems fitting that we make some sort of post on it. We're gonna be nostalgia tripping tho. 

I'm sure some of you remember Odysseus, the broken rare that made Ripples top tier, allowing it to take the World Championship in 2015. But, as all good things must come to an end, Odysseus was soon thereafter semi-limited which crippled the deck severely, and it fell out of the meta pretty hard. 

The deck didn't age especially well, either. Bushi eventually gave Aqua players Odysseus back at 4 during V-Era. With the stride ruling change, the opponent can force the G2 game to end by simply riding up. In addition, using Odysseus after riding up to legion using Miltiades during the main phase is... mediocre. Compared to the powerhouse strides that we have nowadays, the Ripple legion is not a valid playstyle.

Don't get the wrong, though, Odysseus is still broken, providing you with an unparalleled G2 game. Calling big beatstick vanillas to rear with extra on-hit pressure from Pavroth is strong. The Cyclone package gives the deck actual scaling into late-game and access to a first stride Valeos that stops damage triggers. 

It's also worth noting that if you open your 1 Zazan and an Odysseus you do some cheeky stuff and probably autowin?

But let's get into it. 

Premium Budget Deck: Genesis (Iwanagahime combo)

With Premium Collection 2020 finally being released, a lot of interest in the format is being revitalized. Since the most expensive base rarity card in set is Tempest Sphere @ $10, upgrading your Prem decks right now is super cheap. Because of this, it's also a great time to get into the format. Our list today doesn't showcase its Premcolle 2020 stride, but it's still a very low-cost and efficient deck to pick up: Iwanagahime Beats!

Firstly, a brief explanation on how the deck functions. The best beater rear that the clan has access too is Iwanagahime. She can give herself upwards of 40k power (or 60k once the clan gets their respective Crit Sentinel). Our main stride is going to be last year's Premcolle stride, Amaruda Aphross. We will be utilizing both of her skills, her first one to give Iwanagahime an even fatter number, in addition to the draw and soulcharge, and then her second skill to restand Iwan and add a blanket sentinel restrict for the turn. We then extend the attacks by soulblasting Tahro with the skills of our other rears. 

In total, the deck should be swinging with a 63k 3-Crit Iwanagahime three to five times, with each attack after the first unguardable by sentinels. The deck aims to secure the combo first stride, and I've found that it usually kills if it goes off. 

Premium Budget Fight: Spike Brothers (Bad End)

Congrats Chiefs

So with the Superbowl being a recent event, I thought it'd be appropriate to talk about Spike Brothers. In both Standard and Premium Spikes are a pretty solid clan that sets up rear guards to threaten the opponent each turn. Recent sets have also given the deck the ability to complement their aggressive playstyle with draw power and nice tech options as well. V-EB09 has graced us with the return of Bad End Dragger, and with everything Spikes already have alongside with being pretty budget in general, we can revisit a popular premium variation that use him alongside his stride Good End Dragger for a strong aggro turn.

Standard Budget Deck: Murakumo (Weasel Gang)

Assemble!

Occasionally, Bushiroad will gift us with a package that is absolute gold for budget play. This time around, we got the WEASEL GANG.

Aside from being the absolute goodest bois, they have legitimate use. Weasel Red creating an easy-bake board with 30k+ units is neat, especially on turn two. Even if it's at the cost of what's usually going to be your entire hand, this rushdown is well worth it.

Luckily, Murakumo has a decently large cardpool in Standard, and we have access to multiple boss units that we can try out. Since the goodboi engine and triggers take up over half your deck, Weasels are super easy to build, and they're one of the most beginner-friendly decks I've seen in a while.

Standard Budget Deck: Nubatama (Kujikiricongo)

Discard No Jutsu!! 

Nubatama has always been a fun clan for me to brew, even since the original series. Controlling cards in the opponent's hand was something I never really tried in card games prior to Vanguard, and when V-BT03 came around I was looking forward to seeing how Bushi would adapt the clan for Standard. 

I was initially confused when the VR was revealed to be Magatsu Storm, alongside the rest of his ride chain. However, and more importantly, Shura Stealth Dragons returned to Standard alongside the mainline Magatsu set. Let's talk about them for today.

Standard Budget Deck: Pale Moon (Nightmare Doll)

Special thanks to James/Fenrir for allowing me to contribute to Budgetfight! As for me, I'm Nem. I've been a contributor to the local St Louis Cardfight community ever since the start of 2016, helping with playtesting for locals/regionals (even got a couple Top 8s under my belt!) and providing proxy decks to try out for every clan in the game starting from the beginning of Standard Format. Breaking out into content creation and contributing further to a wider audience are always things I've liked/wanted to do, and I've done a couple clan primers in previous formats for our team on Youtube (Team Hivemind).

I've always been a fan of this blog because it lowers the barrier required to get into this game (money can always be an issue with TCGs) by providing easily accessible deck lists for decks that have the potential to contend with the meta!

Couldn't find the ENG version on Google images :/

Once such deck that can contend post-Phantasmal Steed Restoration meta is none other than Nightmare Dolls from the Pale Moon clan! Slightly overshadowed by the more popular Silver Thorns, a diamond in the rough of Pale Moon's previous Standard Format life cycle has emerged in the form of a new boss: Nightmare Doll, Carroll.


Carroll's main utility is in her ability to put combo pieces into soul, call it out if it was a Grade 3 Workeroid, and get a psuedo-restand VG ability by reriding herself or Alice from the soul. If enough CBs are available, she can do this multiple times in one battle phase!

Standard Budget Deck: Nova Grappler (Hero)

Our lord and savior

With our most recent set, The Heroic Evolution, Miwa's Heroes finally became a full deck. They have an actual wincon, and a variety of support cards that share the >Hero< race. The deck in its entirety should run you less than $40, Perfect Guards included, and although they're far overshadowed by Beast Deities, they can still put in a ton of work. If you're looking for the most bang for your buck, I highly recommend picking up Heroes.

Premium Budget Deck: Shadow Paladin (Claret)

So it's been a while....

We're Still Here

For those unfamiliar with me, I'm Inferno, a new addition to the writing team of Budgetfight Vanguard. Nice to meet you all! I've been playing the game since 2013, and met the Budgetfight members on Discord thereafter. Recently, I thought it'd be cool to try and write an article. There hasn't been too much to discuss in terms of standard format as the limited card pool makes deck-building fairly straightforward. In Premium, though, we have a much larger cardpool to work with, and plenty to talk about as a result. 

Anyway, I thought it'd be nice just to say, "hey we're not dead" and also start to get back to showcasing decks. All of us here look forward to creating more articles as the game develops, and we thank all of you for your continued support. 

So anyway, how is deck-building in premium going?

The Beginning of V Series and Budgetfighting

I haven't been here in a while. Actually, none of our writers have. And I'm going to explain why.

How Will V-Series Affect Budgetfighting?

I'm going to assume you've already become aware that Cardfight is getting a reboot, dubbed V-Series, which is implementing set rotation and supporting multiple formats. The new anime will be based off of the manga, and the new Standard Format will only give players access to cards in the new V-Series. I could ramble on, but the information regarding the reboot has been revealed by Bushi here, and other content creators have covered this news as well. Instead, I'm going to instead discuss what the reboot means for budgetfighting and this blog.

Most importantly, Budgetfight will halt all budget deck coverage until the beginning of V-Series. 

Considering a vast majority of our audience needs to invest their smaller budgets wisely, investing in G at this point is extremely questionable. Standard will be the most likely dominant format after just a few sets, and G-Era cards are an extremely poor investment. Premium isn't going to be budget friendly, and will be immensely difficult for newer players to enter.

Deck Spotlight: Pale Moon (Silver Thorn)

Watch me whip

I was actually planning on doing this as a YouTube video. Instead, all I did was learn that my video editing skills are about as effective as the ice cream machine at McDonalds, so after about an hour of suffering followed by a period of regret, I decided to give up and just write a post.

So yeah, I'm here.

Silver Thorns have had the reputation for being an insanely expensive waifu deck for the longest time. Until Rummy Labyrinth, all of the Luquier Grade 3 units were RRR. In addition, Mystique Luquier, who also has an annoying pricetag, was effectively the deck's only stride option.

Rummy Labyrinth didn't exactly do a good job with creeping out a majority of the deck either, and players still have to deal with the annoyingly priced far out-of-print Commons and Rares of old. The newer Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Luquier, was a solid step in the right direction, but the Venus Luquier stride is extremely lackluster. The set gave us another on-hit Grade 2, and a weaker Upright Lion. Cernay is the only good Grade 1 we got, and even the new starter is questionable.

Thanks?

Budget Deck: Genesis (Revelation)

Now that the hype for Genesis has died down, Ishtar and Amaruda are both $3, and everything else from Set 11 is dirt cheap. Hellsky is pretty easy to grab as well, and is only about $10.  Amaruda Revelation is quite strong and easy to pick up, so I think it's a proper time to write about it.

Amaruda's gameplan is pretty simple. Stride into Ishtar, beef up your columns, stack the deck with Revelation, and then go for five attacks. Rinse and repeat. Five powerful attacks absolutely melts, and this ends up making Ishtar your first stride, midrange stride, and finisher. Plan B is, if you're way behind on card advantage, striding into Hellsky for draws.

Budget Deck: Murakumo (Magatsu Shadowstich)

At the beginning of stride era, before The Genius Strategy, Yasuie lists would actually use the Magastu ride chain quite often. Providing the deck with an early game has always been something we strive for in vanguard. After The Genius Strategy, essentially every list dropped Magastu in favor of the Shadowstich support. And since then, Magastu has been practically nonexistent as a deck. Instead, I worked out a build that didn't use the Magastu legion, but used Shadowstich support. And it works.

Budget Deck: Nubatama (Afterimage)

It's been, what, 2 years now since we posted a Nubatama deck here for y'all budget players to use?

Nubatama is a bit of a hype clan at the moment, with the new Domination mechanic. It's not too expensive at the moment due to Mujinlord being the only pricy card at the moment, but knowing the market it's bound to shoot up in price. Dominate is a hype deck, after all.

Nubatama was a difficult deck to budget build for the longest time due to the only viable options being Shura Stealth Dragon, which is heavily undersupported, and Afterimage, which is ungodly expensive with heavy amounts of RRR and GR, with few budget options to chose from due to, again, a heavy lack of support.

But funnily enough, with the newest hype addition to the Nubatama clan, we have so much more to work with in the budget department to make a very cheap, very effective Nubatama deck. Two Trial Decks, a couple Rares and Commons, and some solid, cheap Double Rares and you're good to go!

Budgetfight Facebook Group!

Due to the fact that I don't actually update Twitter, I'm making a group on Facebook where people can comment, discuss, and see all things budgetfight. I hope everyone considers joining, and I'll post the link right here.

My Thoughts: Fenrir vs Amaruda

After Set 11 dropped, one of the more controversial topics has been whether Fenrir or Amaruda are the main ride for a Revelation deck. I wanted to quickly chime in with my opinion, hopefully giving everyone a good view on both arguments, and show why I think as I do.